Posts by martinb
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More folk with their money in and available for companies like Charlies or V (or other non-drink related NZ success stories????) surely can only be good for our economy.
Also how about a strong commitment to a buy NZ made campaign? Remember that used to say keep our country working...
Going to the malls we are getting a lot of hand me downs from the Aussie chains- respect to Barkers and little Brother etc.
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Oh well, at least if nothing changes hard news/ public address is here to Quaker-like provide witness- first tourism and now aid.
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So if you get a 50,000 donation from a BMW firm to your policitical party that then states it would seek to benefit financially from the old fleet if it can does that not have the ‘perception’ of a conflict of interest?
Dealer who gave the Nats $50K eyes govt BMWs:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10725267
sheesh the Herald is becoming biblical in that it prints contradictory articles.
I just want someone to represent me somewhere here!
Exactly Bart I want someone to stand up and say the things I believe in and not go along with the crap. I feel terrible thinking that the values we have held have some how melted away with no one defending them. I remember Michael Cullen giving Key an articulate lot of short shift (shrift?) and wish someone now would too.
OMG I’m agreeing with Craig about something, even if it was a kind of ‘hey you hopeless guys there with the smashed economy living in that hovel, didn’t you guys build the parthenon and invent maths and democracy’ kind of thing…
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Apologies if this is the wrong forum.
As for the case above was settled and the lady has been snapped up by a larger company but I've heard of other abuses too.
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Dear Russell,
I haven't been a reader since the Hobbit debate. I have to be honest in that I didn't really understand what was going on with it and nothing I read gave me a clearer understanding. Everyone was very emotive and involved.
I've since spoken to people I know and am still not sure about exactly what went on.
I do feel there is a major shift to reduce basic employment rights, and that the Hobbit with its marching and Sir Peter Jackson's backing was part of the PR for that. Now the government has come out and said business should take advantage of our comparatively poor pay it merely seems to confirm their agenda all along.
I was wondering if you were going to make a comment on Helen Kelly's in depth account (which I am still reading through). Also perhaps it would be good to know how you feel about the current changes to the employment law, and the abuses of the contractor/employee divide in our workplaces.
As Helen Kelly says
"Contract labour is also used by many employers to avoid obligations they would otherwise have to employees such as sick leave, paid holidays and employment security. Many workers in NZ are employed in this way for no personal benefit but with little choice"
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1104/S00081/helen-kelly-the-hobbit-dispute.htm
This can be the case where the contractor should be an employee but is uninformed or disempowered or both.
I feel this is important for my view of what New Zealand is, where we don't attack our weakest, we support them.
This is what I wrote at the time on another blog where you were putting your case:
martinb said...
I am at my core someone who wants things to reach an accord.I've long been an admirer, listener and reader of Russell Brown's. And I've never been a great fan of Chris Trotter. So it pains me greatly to find I may come down omre on Trotters side than Russels.
What upsets people like myself Russell, is that by attacking the union without equal balance, you add to the antiworker vitriol of the moment, much of which is unjustified.
I would expect from someone of, what I had considered to be, stature to post more like Tim Watkin at Pundit/TVNZ.
But instead there has been a lot of vitriol at an admittedly bizarre union campaign.
Feeling uneasy is not a sufficient response to this continual abuse of the democratic process by National.
I work in a work place where a lady with excellent performance of 3 years has just been let go. Despite excellent reviews from her clients (some of whom were in tears), peers and immediate manager she has been dismissed (she had been on 6 month contracts through that 3 year period) with poor performance cited).
This is not an isolated case below decks at the moment. By attacking the union without providing balance, irrespective of the merits of the case, it is easy to feel you are not supporting the people who this is happening to and that you don't care.
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What Bryson did if I am not mistaken was set out a defintion of what a contractor was and what an employee was, which I believe is a precedent. I'd have to look into it a bit further, but I believe that is why Jackson was bee in bonnet.
And one that Kate Wilkinson tried to change by saying if we call it a river it is a river, even if it is a sea. See Charles Chauvel's speech parliament for more.
Gotta love the folk on here defending Jackson/Walsh etc on the Radio NZ news, when he's catching heat for his private emails differing from his public stance. Can we just say he's the head of a major film thingy, not Mother Theresa? Ask James Cameron's wives...
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Sorry I haven't had time to read the whole thread, but perhaps a better conspiracy theory might be US actors trying to sabotage 'runaway productions' through the same international conditions thing?
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Yep Craig. You're the expert on patronising crap: try this one:
Teachers are now a "noose around the neck of young New Zealanders".
Waiting.
Less genteel, less bullshit.
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Good to see Public Address keeps its Nat apologist around ready to defend anything these clowns claim.
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If someone out there has a copy I've determined through Goodle books that it is page 128- but can only remember her cry as she ran off
"Moscow!"
http://books.google.com/books?id=yL0fAQAAIAAJ&q=librarian#search_anchor
I have though invented a fun new drinking game involving snippet view on Google books. You have to guess if a word is in 'Fugitive Pieces" Everyone else must then drink the number of times that it appears in the book...choose any book with snippet view for the desired effect...